


Four Things Elizabeth Doesn't Know

by miera



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Character Study, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-21
Updated: 2013-06-21
Packaged: 2017-12-15 15:49:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/851305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miera/pseuds/miera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four things Elizabeth doesn't know, and one thing she does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four Things Elizabeth Doesn't Know

During their first year in the city, Elizabeth would occasionally find some sort of candy in her desk. Usually during periods of time which were... not high stress because every day was high stress, but exceptionally high stress, she would randomly find a piece of candy tucked in her upper desk drawer. Sometimes, as in the immediate aftermath of the storm and the Genii, it is the Holy Grail of Atlantis: a whole chocolate bar.

She thought about just leaving them. Consuming presents from a secret admirer seems like an invitation to more and she can't go there, not in her position and not in this place. But there came a day when her willpower, so strong in so many other areas, cracked enough that she was savoring the rustle of the cellophane wrapper and then the hard lump of sugar was dissolving slowly on her tongue before she could stop and think.

After the siege and re-establishing contact with Earth, the gifts appear regularly. Never anything big, just enough to keep her going on the days when she felt down.

She has her suspicions, of course. And she knows the gate room techs know who it is. But she never brings herself to actually ask anyone. It's one of the few things in her life she doesn't feel the need to control.

And he is too smart to let her catch him.

***

One weary evening sitting in her quarters, she feels the need for some music. When she was preparing for this adventure, she was so concerned with things like food and bullets and duck tape she didn't have time to think about music or the other little comforts they were leaving behind.

So she's ecstatic to find, on the common music server, a whole mess of Sam Cooke songs.

Elizabeth has no memory of a conversation that had happened months before, where she casually mentioned her preference for Sam Cooke. She never finds out that a few days after that conversation, he sent a request that anyone who had Sam Cooke songs upload them, and made it sound like it was for him.

 

***

She assumes no one else really likes the particular tea she drinks, except Teyla and Kate, who will have a cup when she's being social now and then, because they never run out of it. They run out of a lot of things, even with the Daedalus coming to them periodically. The contact isn't truly "regular" as there are too many variables at play, so they tend to burn through certain supplies repeatedly.

But she doesn't want to bring that up with Stephen again. He'll get that look on his face and that vein in his neck will start to twitch, and he'll be thinking about all the years he put in with the Air Force, all the dangerous stuff he's done for his country, and about the word "mailman." And she just can't deal with it, even though she's become fond of Stephen in a perverse way over the years.

She has no idea that there was an incident with a requisition form that was changed after she signed off on it, or that there were instructions and not-so-veiled threats to the mess hall staff about making sure they never ran out of her tea.

 

***

She's convinced she shuts her light off at night. Possibly in her sleep.

She tends to fall asleep in her bathrobe, usually after she straggles back to her rooms very late at night to shower the stress of the day off and go to bed. It's an old habit, possibly stretching back to baths as a child that involved bubbles and toys and then ended with soft, clean towels, her teddy bear, a glass of milk and a cookie.

She gets done with the shower and towels off her hair and she always intends to dry her hair properly, to tidy things up like a responsible adult, but she inevitably ends up sitting on her bed to rub lotion into her feet. Which leads to lying down. Then her eyes close, and the next thing she knows its morning.

He knows that she can be a heavy sleeper, especially after taking a bath. She never wakes up when he comes in on those nights. He also knows that it's wildly inappropriate to be in her quarters without invitation when she's practically unconscious, but honestly, other than a little more leg and a little more cleavage, he's never seen anything he shouldn't. Much.

He slips in without her knowing, tucking a blanket over her bare feet, shutting off the lights, making sure she's safe for the night and resting like she needs to, before he leaves as silently as he showed up.

***

They gave her the best room in the living quarters. She didn't know that at first, because it was an alien city and short of behaving like a nosy freshman on the first day in the dorm, there was no way to find out. Plus those first 72 hours she was a little busy with the radical adjustment to life in Pegasus.

It's only after some weeks have passed that she starts to get tiny glimpses in other people's rooms. The size isn't all that different, but her view, because of the location in relation to the tower, is the best.

That's not all. The first time she went to her quarters to try and sleep, she found her stuff dumped on the floor in a heap. She'd managed to unpack enough items to shower and then slept for about three hours on the bare mattress, too tired to care. But sometime between then and the next night, someone went in and arranged the furniture, made the bed and provided a pillow. Later, someone dragged in a couch for her to use. Surplus materials, like extra towels or fabric to use for curtains, always seem to find their way to her first.

They've given her the best things, because she's in charge, because they have faith in her. So Elizabeth gives the city the best that she has, everything she has. She can't do anything less.


End file.
